In 2018, Cape Town’s reservoirs were dangerously low. Although authorities severely limited water usage, the city barely avoided “Day Zero.” This would have meant shutting off water to private homes, forcing residents to queue for water rations. Why such a water shortage? South Africa’s water system is crumbling. The system loses 70 million liters of water each day due to leaks.

Like South Africa’s, California’s water infrastructure is outdated and in need of repair. California’s reservoirs are largely full now, but there is  only enough water for the state to make it through one dry year. To avoid an outcome like Cape Town’s, California needs to start using new technology and smart public policy to ensure the state has enough water.

Managing California’s watersheds

Watershed management will be key to ensuring water from rainfall and snowmelt finds its way to reservoirs, lakes and rivers. Restoring meadows and forests impacted by pollution, development and wildfires will allow for slower release of rainwater and snowmelt. This increases the environment’s ability to hold water.

California’s Sierra Nevada mountains hold a lot of fresh water in their snowpack. The Sierra Nevada Watershed provides drinking water to two-thirds of the state’s population, but the snowpack is under threat from rising temperatures. The state has was lucky this summer, receiving relatively cool temperatures that left the snow intact. Because California’s watersheds are degraded, they are not able to withstand a great amount of meltwater, so higher temperatures could have caused catastrophic flooding. At the same time, billions of gallons of badly needed fresh water would have been lost.

We may not be so lucky next year, so we need to act quickly. Nonprofits like the Sierra Nevada Conservancy provide grants for watershed management projects including fire mitigation and land conservation. The state should follow their lead and invest in similar restorations now.

In addition, new, strategically-placed reservoirs like the proposed Alder Creek Reservoir could be game-changers. This proposal would see the reservoir located in higher elevation to better catch snowpack melt and upstream so water would not have to ever be released to prevent risks of flooding.

California should also invest more in below-ground water storage. Previous projects have seen substantial results. In 2016, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti broke ground on the largest underground reservoir in the western US, called the Headworks Reservoir. Since completion, it has stored over 110 million gallons of water for LA and helped the city meet state quality levels.

In January 2023, LA received heavy winter rains. The Headworks Reservoir and the newly expanded Tujunga Spreading Grounds rose to the occasion and helped to capture the stormwaters. In fact, the Tujunga Spreading Grounds can capture enough water to supply 64,000 households per year.

Below-ground water storage contributes immensely to our elastic water supply. Its ability to adapt with the constant ebb and flow of water supply makes it a vital solution to the state’s water scarcity.

Using our water resources more efficiently

Along with capturing more water, we can leverage new technologies to make more efficient use of the water that we have.

Advanced water recycling, or direct potable reuse (DPR), could save enough water for 2 million Californian households. Currently, wastewater is treated and then dumped into the rivers and ocean — 400 gallons a day in Los Angeles County alone. As climate change alters rain and snowmelt patterns, this water becomes less likely to find its way back to reservoirs and aquifers. With DPR, wastewater is highly treated and purified to meet drinking water standards before being introduced directly into public water systems.

Recycled water from a DPR system is considered the cleanest drinking water available. Texas, Arizona, and Colorado are already using DPR systems in drought-stricken cities. The State Water Resources Control Board should do the same in California especially in areas hardest hit by drought.

New technologies can also help us efficiently transport water. Using renewable power, we can move water across the state at low cost.

We can also integrate solar panels with aqueducts. A recent study conducted at the University of California, Merced, found that the shade provided by solar panels reduces evaporation by up to 90% annually. California has 4,000 miles of open canals. Researchers estimate that putting solar panels over them could save enough water for 2 million people annually. In addition, the clean power generated by these solar panel networks would also help to power water filtration, maintenance and the movement of water throughout the state. We should seize the opportunity to save energy, money, and water using low-cost solar technology. 

Seeing full reservoirs, flowing rivers, and historic snowpacks feels miraculous after years of drought. But this miracle will turn out to be a mirage unless we update existing watershed management, expand below-ground water storage, support advanced recycling and integrate renewable energy into infrastructure. With a little effort and foresight, California can continue to be not only the Golden State, but a green one as well.

[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post New Technologies and Responsible Management Can Solve California’s Water Crisis appeared first on Fair Observer.

The power demand isn’t going to slow any time soon. The advent of cryptocurrency and generative AI is creating an exponential rise in demand for more data centers and more electricity. We’re witnessing a revolution in electric cars, trucks and appliances. Electric companies will have to meet the demand while moving us toward a carbon-neutral world. We can do this by taking three key steps.

The first step is to accelerate the ongoing revolution in renewable energy.  In 2022, 83% of all new energy added globally by utilities was renewable, and renewable energy is expected to surpass coal by 2025.

While the accessibility of renewable energy has increased, the better news is that costs continue to decrease. Solar manufacturing costs drop every year and will only get more competitive with fossil fuels.

Wind projects have decreased in costs by 40% over the last decade. The Inflation Reduction Act is an essential step in the right direction with an estimated $1.2 trillion in incentives for clean technology by 2032. Clean energy is not only better for the planet, it’s becoming cheaper by the day.

Unfortunately, the sun doesn’t always shine, and the wind doesn’t always blow. That’s why advancing battery storage is a key bridge to a clean energy future. When I served on the board of Tesla in 2010, the energy cost for batteries was over $1,100 per kilowatt-hour. This was part of why electric vehicles were prohibitively expensive. Just ten years later, the cost of battery storage had dropped by an order of magnitude to $137 per kilowatt-hour. Tesla has cut electric vehicle prices five times in 2023 alone.

Battery manufacturers are driving decreases in battery costs that are leading to a revolution in power storage. Tesla’s energy/battery division is a prime example, deploying 3.98 gigawatt hours  of power storage in the third quarter of 2023 alone. That’s enough to power all the homes in Chicago and LA combined. Expect to see some form of battery storage in most homes, offices and schools in the coming decades. Batteries are rapidly becoming a cheaper alternative to natural gas or nuclear, and they are a lot easier to permit next to a school or apartment building.

The toughest problem to solve will be building a resilient, multi-directional grid that will connect this new mosaic of storage and energy devices. This new grid will enable utilities and homeowners alike to generate power and store it when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, as well as to transport it to the areas that need it the most based on the time of day. This will enable us to avoid building excess capacity and help us solve for those critical times of peak energy demand (both winter and summer) by saving up power when it’s cheap and using it during peak demand.

The electrical power grid is the largest and most important machine in the world. The Internet wouldn’t function without the power grid. Transforming the grid from a one-way transmission system to a multidirectional grid will enable everyone to play a role in slowing climate change.

Renewables, batteries and a new, multi-directional grid won’t solve all of our problems. We will still need to develop green hydrogen for energy-intensive industries like steel and cement. Over time, we will need more nuclear energy plants because of their efficiency and baseload power. California’sPacific Gas and Electric Company estimates that electricity demand will increase by 70% over the next 20 years. Bill Gates and Elon Musk think it will be closer to 2–3 times that. But, in a race against climate change, renewables, batteries and the grid are the three best tools we have today. The world’s utilities are our best chance to help us win that race.

[Anton Schauble edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post A Golden Age Is Emerging for Green Energy appeared first on Fair Observer.

Overnight, every human on the planet could access every library, museum, song catalog, and more, all in their back pocket. The third epiphany has just occurred with Sam Altman and OpenAI releasing ChatGPT.

ChatGPT, AI and Society

ChatGPT is the result of decades of advances in artificial intelligence (AI). AI can now summarize scientific papers, compose songs, paint pictures and write code. For the first time, an app on your smartphone can do more than just provide facts like who won the World Cup game today. 

You can now ask it to write a press release for your company or complete your kid’s application to Stanford through a simple, interactive question-and-answer format. The app will respond in seconds in a way indistinguishable from something a brilliant human being would write.

You no longer have to face a blank screen and a flashing cursor. AI can provide you with the rough draft for most creative content. Enter a prompt, and it will give you choices. Pick one of them and start editing. Your art will be based on your knowledge and how you fine-tune the details.

Every great leap forward has significant consequences, from nuclear energy’s destructive power to social media’s disruptive impact. The rise of advanced AI is no exception. As this technology evolves, it will render millions of jobs obsolete, impacting every profession. Accounting, journalism, creative arts and even the judiciary will be affected. The transformational power of AI is evident. However, we must manage its impact on society to ensure that we create a better future for all.

The past can be a guide to the future. Industrialization made many professions obsolete and caused massive disruption to society. Yet factory automation, business software and industrial robots did not result in mass unemployment. On the whole, they made workers more productive. 

AI for Benefit of All

There is no reason we cannot similarly harness AI. We should be doing three things today to make OpenAI work for everyone.

The first is access. We need to make AI technology available to schools, libraries and community centers so that every child can access it from an early age. Only then can we begin to address the growing gap in income equality that plagues our society. 

The second is training. We should train our young people, especially those in underserved communities, to use the extraordinary power provided by new AI tools such as Midjourney, Jasper and CoPilot. Getting our children to basic reading comprehension by third grade is no longer enough. We will need to change the curriculum and set standards for every child to have basic proficiency in using AI. 

The third is privacy. We need to set clear privacy standards to protect everyone’s personal information. 

Over the next decade, the benefits of advanced AI will have an extraordinary impact on every sector of our lives. But as everyone who remembers HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s visionary movie A Space Odyssey knows, we would be wise to anticipate and manage the unintended consequences of computers that dominate our lives.

It is important to remember that ChatGPT works by pattern matching across the entire corpus of previously collected human knowledge and extrapolating from the most likely word and number sequences from before. It is good at providing drafts for editing and fine-tuning. But it is not capable of original thought. In the future, it may be necessary for us to clearly mark where ChatGPT has been used in content creation. By doing so, consumers can decide how much to rely on its veracity. The context will matter—high confidence for a business meeting summary, less so for surgery instructions.

At the current rate of technological change, there is no guarantee that there will be another 50 years to set standards to manage the extraordinary advances that human ingenuity is creating. We need to start thinking about them now. But, if we can take the lessons we’ve learned about protecting personal privacy, ensuring equal access, and setting the highest standards for trust and safety, this may be the biggest leap forward in human history. [Conner Tighe edited this article.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Managing Technology Innovation for a Better Future appeared first on Fair Observer.

Democrats face challenges of their own trying to figure out how to weave together moderate Biden Democrats with a new generation of democratic socialists. One way to become “the party of the future” is to articulate a clear plan for solving the problems of the future. Here is one clear opportunity.

The Weak European Reflex in German Cybersecurity

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Both the Trump and the Biden administrations approved multibillion-dollar pandemic stimulus programs. Despite the gravity of the COVID-19 economic crisis, half of the government stimulus did not get to the working Americans who desperately needed help. Much was stolen by fraudsters and criminal rings who exploited online claims. Made worse, 70% of the stolen funds went abroad to Russia, China and Nigeria.

California State Auditor Elaine Howle warned as much last August and announced in a January report that the Employment Development Department (EDD) had sent 555,000 claims to 26,000 suspect addresses — an average of 21 per address — despite the evidence of fraudulent activity. One address had more than 80 claims, and yet EDD’s automated tool missed 12 as late as in December 2020. Howle also noted that a disturbing number of claims went to people currently incarcerated in California prisons.

This begs the question: How long will taxpayers support government programs only to learn that the money ended up in the hands of criminals? This is how we stop it.

Every FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration office has a special agent in charge (SAC) to coordinate efforts in combatting criminal threats. We need state-based SACs for cybersecurity to assist state and local governments, prevent fraud and direct funding for state task forces as we already do for counterterrorism.

Under the authority of the secretary of homeland security, chief security officers in each state would provide a full conduit of information to all levels of government to intercept criminals. Besides preventing fraud, they could play a valuable role in helping local governments encrypt both voter rolls and votes as well as portect against ransomware attacks.

Governments in general also need more cyber experts. Cyber gangs have upped the ante, going so far as to examine companies’ cyber insurance policies before activating ransomware as experts believe was done in the most recent Kaseya hack. We need to raise the bar to intercept these bad actors before they reach private citizens or entities. A Marshall Plan for cyber hiring across all government would put us on stronger footing to combat increasingly aggressive behavior by state-supported crime syndicates.

Lastly, we need to measure how we are doing. We need to require that states publicly account for the share of unemployment benefits that get into the right hands. Obviously, not every malicious individual can be caught. By spotlighting our efficacy, we can highlight the problem, heighten demand and recruit more people with the tech backgrounds we need to tackle fraud.

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As a lifelong Democrat, I believe in the power of a strong government that provides a social safety net to protect its citizens. The answer is not less government or pretending there will not be more tech-based attacks on our citizens and businesses. The answer is for government to demonstrate it can proactively provide solutions to stop the problem and provide accountability.

We need a government that is technologically capable enough to protect our people and smart enough to get the money to those who need it most. Whichever party shows it understands the future by solving new problems like cybersecurity will be in the pole position to win in 2022 and beyond.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post A 21st-Century Marshall Plan for Cyber Defense appeared first on Fair Observer.

Bitcoin energy consumption comes down to how it’s secured. The currency utilizes a process called proof of work, which requires an arsenal of high-powered computers to solve a cryptic puzzle every 10 minutes to create new currency to add to the blockchain. Achieving enough guesses to solve the puzzle and create transactions requires thousands of computers — or more efficient GPUs. This demands an enormous amount of energy, which is growing as its price and mining competition increase.

What’s Next for Cryptocurrency?

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Moreover, 65% of the world’s Bitcoin mining comes from one country: China. The US is a distant second with 7.2% and Russia with 6.9%. This is particularly concerning from a global warming standpoint because 58% of China’s electric power comes from coal. Even with cheap, renewable energy, Bitcoin would be diverting that clean energy from critical infrastructure, slowing the world’s existential race to carbon neutrality.

To make cryptocurrency transactions environmentally viable, policymakers should be embracing greener crypto technologies such as the proof-of-stake and federated consensus systems. While proof of work incentivizes computing power to prevent the double-spending of coins, these alternative technologies work in a different but equally effective way that doesn’t use meaningful amounts of energy. Proof-of-stake systems place trust in users with a greater share of coins who have more to lose if the system collapses. Federated consensus systems work by automatically finding a negotiated agreement that no double-spending of coins occurred.

These alternative technologies are faster too. While Bitcoin can create a transaction every 10 minutes — up to an hour for the transaction to be fully validated — proof-of-stake currencies can confirm transactions in seconds. That’s why Algorand started as a proof of stake and why Ethereum is proposing a switch to that technology. Ripple’s XRP coin uses a federated consensus system of trusted validators that also confirms transactions in seconds and is popular in cross-border payments. And yet Bitcoin’s sustained dominance means that while auto companies are getting cleaner, crypto tech is getting dirtier. Energy-intensive crypto mining is no different than coal or oil a century ago. 

Unfortunately, Bitcoin’s governance is in the hands of powerful miners who have very little incentive to change to greener consensus methods. With Chinese Bitcoin miners controlling over 51% of the market, the Chinese government can exhibit climate leadership by forcing their miners to fork to low-energy alternatives, in effect adapting all Bitcoin.

More locally, our policymakers need to find appropriate ways to disincentivize crypto energy hogs by taxing transactions on those coins in US exchanges. Paris Climate Agreement signees must commit to tax or ban proof-of-work coins by the global audit of the 2015 accord scheduled to take place in 2023 at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Glasgow. Coinbase’s recent public offering and Binance’s completely siloed US subsidiary have illustrated the Securities and Exchange Commission has the wherewithal to regulate American crypto exchanges.

Cryptocurrencies are here to stay because they provide safer, quicker and less costly ways to transfer value. But people need to understand Bitcoin’s enormous pollution implications and that cleaner technology already exists. Addressing coins that burn excessive energy for mining will be the only way to square cryptocurrencies with real-world environmental damage. Just as coal was once supplanted by oil and oil by renewables, leadership requires recognizing innovation in new spaces. As the crypto revolution continues to expand, it’s time to find and promote more energy-efficient alternatives. Mr. Musk has shown us how to clean up the auto industry. Maybe it’s time he turns his attention to cleaning up crypto.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Is Bitcoin the New Coal? appeared first on Fair Observer.

It is clear America is still a very divided nation. The big question is, what did the Democrats do wrong, and how can we do better moving forward?

America Is No Longer One Nation

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Voter participation was not the problem, with a record-high 158 million Americans casting ballots. Fundraising was not the issue as election spending also hit record highs, at nearly $14 billion, and Democrats raised close to double what Republicans did. The major story is that record turnout and fundraising failed to propel Democratic candidates in the House, the Senate and state legislatures to victory as expected. The presidential race was a clear referendum on Donald Trump that didn’t translate down the ticket.

President Trump’s overall approval rating generally hovered around 40% over the course of his term in office. That’s already dangerous territory as no president in modern history has won reelection with an approval rating below 48%. Joe Biden was able to cut into Trump’s 2016 base, including seniors and non-college-educated white men. At the same time, Trump was able to win over parts of Hillary Clinton’s coalition, including Hispanic voters. Most surprisingly, an incredible 56% of Americans said they were better off today than four years ago in a September Gallup poll. That’s more than in 2012 before the re-election of President Barack Obama.

In the end, it all came down to two major issues: the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy. As recently as April, Donald Trump was more trusted to manage the economy by 8 points over Joe Biden. But 59% of Americans disapproved of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. As that lead diminished and the pandemic continued to claim lives, Trump lost his last remaining advantage. But to win after COVID-19, Democrats need to improve their messaging.

Democrats need to understand that America is still a center-right country with a large, highly motivated evangelical base. They need to cope with the repercussions of embracing democratic socialism at the national level. The Democratic Party also needs to address the fear many Americans have that the new economy may leave them behind as they see jobs move out of the country and the wage gap expands. Flirting with socialism is likely to frighten workers already nervous about the future.

The solution lies in finding smart ways to appeal to the growing base of young and minority voters without frightening rural, white constituencies. The common ground is likely to be in reliable kitchen-table issues like the economy, health care and jobs. The most important issue for the Democrats has always been jobs. They need to mount a full assault to retake this issue by focusing on how to better train America’s workforce to be job-ready for the 21^st century. They need to talk about how they will reduce income inequality by providing the specific skills necessary to get tomorrow’s jobs. And, most importantly, they need to talk about how to provide those skills to inner-city and rural voters alike.

The Democrats will enjoy the benefits and power from building a big tent party in an ever-closer majority-minority nation, particularly while the GOP wrestles with internal strife over white nationalism. But they can’t continue to lose over issues and messaging. It all starts with presenting a sensible strategy for preparing more Americans with 21^st-century skills. This election is over, but the battle for the next one has already begun. The Democrats don’t have time to waste.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post What the Democrats Need to Understand About America appeared first on Fair Observer.

Today, America faces unprecedented challenges from foreign powers, especially China and North Korea. To meet the challenges, we must build a coherent foreign policy that the world — especially our allies — can understand and support. We are witnessing China increasingly flexing its muscles on the Indian border, in Hong Kong, in the South China Sea and with Taiwan. America puts itself at risk to not realize that China is investing much of its resources into a growing, multifaceted military.

360° Context: The 2020 US Election Explained

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The US needs to build alliances throughout Asia to ensure our stability for the next century. We need to be doubling down on our relationships with India, Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and especially South Korea. South Korea is the world’s 12th-largest economic power and one of America’s strongest allies for the last 60 years. It has been a bastion of democracy housing one of the largest US military bases in Asia. It also houses an essential element of the West’s global supply chain for technology, transportation and telecommunications. This supply chain is more important than ever if relations with China continue to deteriorate.

While the importance of a strong South Korea policy is at an all-time high, US President Donald Trump managed to stick his finger in the eye of our Korean allies. In 2019, Trump demanded “out of thin air” that the Koreans pay $4.7 billion per year to station US military forces on the Korean Peninsula, according to CNN.

There is no question that our allies have to pay their fair share for defense. However, cost-sharing negotiations must be based on rationale and data. At precisely the time we need strong allies in Asia, President Trump is burning bridges. This is a major political gaffe that America needs to correct before our relationship suffers long-term damage. If the South Koreans cannot count on reasonable and predictable US foreign policy, they will have little choice but to abandon Washington and to seek out other alliances.

The South Koreans weren’t the only ones taken by surprise. Even Republican Senators Cory Gardner and Marco Rubio were unprepared to discuss the president’s comments. Senator Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said, “If South Korea decides that it is better off without the United States, President Trump will have undermined an over 60-year shared commitment to peace, stability, and rule of law.”

The United States can do better. We need to deepen our relationship with South Korea as an essential partner for dealing with North Korea and China. We should be doing the same with other Asian countries and continue to promote the policies that Democratic and Republican secretaries of state have built over decades. A president needs to communicate a consistent game plan that the American people — and our allies — can understand and count on.

Presidential leadership needs to be even-handed and sensitive to the concerns of our allies. Demands should be replaced by reasonable requests and ample explanations. Insisting that allies vastly increase payments to the United States might make good domestic election-year politics at the cost of American safety in the world.

If we do not rethink the importance of our allies soon, we may be left to fight the next war alone.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post The Importance of the US-South Korea Relationship appeared first on Fair Observer.

A Better Way to Connect in Lockdown

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In short, the 2020 election has the potential to seriously divide the nation more deeply than ever. While this may provide short-term catharsis, it’s also a trap. But if we’re smart, we can instead use it as an opportunity to refocus on what really made America great. The country at its best has avoided the attraction of tribal, partisan politics and has instead focused on the common purpose of what it is to be an American. Here is what we should remember about how the United States became the world’s most successful democracy.

Looking at America

America has thrived precisely because we avoided the dangers of extremism. We have consistently found a middle ground with a healthy balance of government oversight and investment. Before the Reagan revolution in the 1980s, government policy wasn’t solely built on tax cuts or the warfare over redistributing wealth — which has only polarized our society.

Rather, we relied on strong government investment and private industry providing new technology to consumers. Economic mobility and massive advances in manufacturing technology (think Henry Ford and IBM) became the origin of the American dream and our soft and hard power across the globe. And, most importantly, there was a national consensus on funding a vibrant public school system and investing in a world-class network of community colleges and public universities.

There are many examples of how America did what other countries couldn’t. Starting with the GI Bill in 1944, we understood that with affordable college education we would give a generation the opportunity to become part of a thriving middle class. We formed coalitions across party lines to invest in our schools and teachers so the next generation of Americans gained the skills to be successful. We created an infrastructure that connected every corner of our nation via rail, freeways and, now, through high-speed internet connectivity.

The next generation of infrastructure — 5G technology — will allow businesses to reach new markets as well as give the next generation of young people (in rich and poor communities) instant access to the world’s information. We’ve done it before and we can do it again. Blue sky research produced public goods like GPS, the internet and the Green Revolution.

Only government can make the difficult investments at the scale necessary to maintain our position as the world’s innovation leader and largest economy. But that requires that we heal our political and cultural rifts and figure out how to prepare for increasing competition from foreign companies and countries.

Our mixed economy of private and public investment has also been integral to our national security and global dominance. America’s innovative spirit put the first airplane in the sky and the first man on the moon. To win the competitive global race in this century, we must push for strategic investments now across the broad swath of our country. China is outpacing us on EV infrastructure and funding for artificial intelligence and scientific moonshots, while we lag behind on educational performance relative to other OECD countries.

We Built America

These challenges can’t be solved by tax cutting our way into innovation or by calling our opponents names. They require smart investments and strategies to ensure that we provide both our companies and our young people — in every community — a chance to succeed.

In the coming election, we need to remember what made America great. America has always been good at forging a strong consensus on national priorities — from keeping our union intact to putting a person on the moon. We made concerted investments in the future. And with government and the private sector working together, we made sure no one was left behind. Our kids and grandkids — be they Republican or Democrat — will benefit from our investments today. Divisiveness and name calling didn’t build America. We did.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post What Really Makes America Great appeared first on Fair Observer.

Yet in the United States, the hard right is taking extraordinary actions to restrict freedoms for half the population: women. Six states have passed laws in 2019 banning abortion. These so-called “heartbeat bills” ban abortion before many women even know they are pregnant. Alabama went even further in May, passing a near-total ban on abortion, and Tennessee just announced it plans to do the same.

The Trump administration is taking a different approach with its “protect life” rule that withholds federal funding from family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood unless they stop providing abortion services. This will leave millions of women with no options in unwanted pregnancies, and no choice in what they do with their own bodies.

It’s time to call these rules what they are: attacks on our basic freedoms. I’m proud that America is the “land of the free,” but those words ring hollow when half the population is prevented from seeking basic health care to address life-changing circumstances. Over 6,000 women chose to have abortions in hospitals and health clinics in Alabama in 2017. That number could fall to zero as women are forced into dangerous situations without access to basic health care services.

The Trump administration’s “protect life” rule is even more far-reaching because it withholds critical federal funding for family-planning clinics unless they stop even informing women that abortion is a health-care option. Planned Parenthood provided family-planning and health-care services to over 4 million people in 2017. Two-thirds were women and men of color and two-thirds were on low incomes. Nearly half had no health insurance. Defunding these clinics would leave many Americans without options, and the impact could have significant consequences.

Planned Parenthood provided HIV testing for over 740,000 people in 2017 and diagnosed 240,000 sexually transmitted infections. This not only impacts women, but men and children as well, and it disproportionately impacts people of color. This fight, like the ones in Moscow and Hong Kong, is far from over.

Act Now

What can we do? Concerned people made over 350,000 calls to members of Congress and gathered 1.5 million signatures in response to the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and block funding for Planned Parenthood. Putting this pressure on elected leaders is the best way to fight back, but we can do more.

The Supreme Court confirmed the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade almost a half-century ago. That’s why the quickest way to fight restriction efforts like this new “Protect Life” rule may be through the courts. Courts, applying the holding of Roe and other abortion decisions, should strike these state laws down.

Over the long term, however, any legal strategy must be buttressed by a public education campaign to win the messaging battle over abortion. We must remind voters that abortion restrictions are not a “women’s issue” or even an “abortion issue”: they are a health care issue and a matter of basic bodily freedom. This public education campaign should be geared toward boosting turn-out in elections for federal and state offices.

We need to repeal these draconian laws and fight for the millions depending on family-planning and medical services provided by Planned Parenthood and others. We may have an autocratic president, but we don’t have an autocratic political system. A two-pronged strategy of legal challenges and public education can repudiate the recent spate of anti-choice laws.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg may have summed it up best in 1993 by saying: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It’s a decision she must make herself. When [the] Government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.” But words matter little if Americans don’t turn out to vote. It’s time to show that we really are the “land of the free.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

The post Is America Really the “Land of the Free”? appeared first on Fair Observer.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey’s Green New Deal has sparked an important and overdue debate about America’s energy future. The core message of the controversial bill is correct: America needs an all-hands-on-deck effort to combat climate change. The last five years have been the five hottest years in recorded history. The consequences of climate change — from unprecedented wildfires in California to the recent flooding in the Midwest — are threats to Americans’ security and well-being. The government needs to act. The Green New Deal as proposed makes the right diagnosis, but the wrong prescription.

Unfortunately, the Green New Deal doesn’t lay out a clear or realistic transition to renewable energy; it’s a grab-bag of wide-ranging economic and social policy proposals. The bill puts forward changes to the law to reduce poverty, provide universal health care, break up monopolies and provide a job for every American. These may be worthy goals, but their exorbitant costs make it less likely that the bill will see the light of day. A better Green New Deal would be laser-focused on transitioning the country to 100% sustainable energy as quickly as possible. A serious bill would start by setting and meeting three ambitious but achievable goals.

First, Congress should require state regulators to move energy utilities toward a nationwide balance of 50% renewable energy by 2040. California has already shown us how to get there. The state set goals to have utilities to get 20% of their energy from renewable sources by 2010 and 33% from renewables by 2020. It met both goals ahead of schedule. California is now on track to reach 50% sustainable energy by 2030.

The United States can generate 100% renewable energy, but it needs a clear and realistic nationwide goal tied to a legislative mandate. Hitting 100% renewable energy in 10 years, as the Green New Deal proposes, is not realistic. A more realistic, but still ambitious goal would be to require utilities across the country to get 50% of their energy from renewable sources by 2040. The next Congress should set it as a nationwide mandate.

Second, Congress should set a goal of banning the sales of internal combustion vehicles by 2040. This sounds like a bold proclamation, but 11 countries — including England, France, Israel, India, and Taiwan — have already done it. China is likely to do the same within two years. The good news is that electric vehicles (EV’s) will soon be priced on par with gas-powered cars, and every automaker in the world is tooling up to go electric.

Offering a $2,500 refundable federal tax credit to buy an EV is a smart transition strategy. Those incentives could phase out as the cost of lithium ion batteries goes down. The United States and China are fighting for leadership in global EV production. We should be leaning forward, not backward, when it comes to producing emission-free vehicles.

Third, Congress should set a target of increasing building energy efficiency substantially by 2030. Buildings use 40% of the nation’s energy. Setting higher standards for energy efficient buildings creates green jobs and saves energy. And while a substantial increase in efficiency is ambitious, it is realistic: Already in 2018, over 40% of buildings in the top 30 United States markets met silver, gold or platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

Still, we can do more. European countries like Norway have developed “powerhouse” buildings that are “energy positive,” which means they generate more energy than they use. We should follow Europe’s lead and use a series of carrots and sticks to make sure that 70% of our buildings meet gold or platinum LEED energy efficiency standards by 2030.

A Green New Deal is essential for the planet, and it’s a winning campaign message. Adding a massive restructuring of the American economy and health-care system is admirable goal, but dooms any major movement on environmental issues to failure. We need a clear plan with aggressive milestones to get there, using the template that California and Western European countries have shown us. If you care about passing a Green New Deal, keep it 100% green!

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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Smoky skies and incinerated homes from wildfires are becoming the new normal in the United States and other countries throughout the world. Bad luck alone is not to blame. Climate change is creating drier weather and is dissipating the snow packs that feed our rivers throughout the year. This creates deadly fire conditions. Worse yet, it now costs 12 times what it did in 1985 to fight these fires, draining state and local budgets. Californians know that we are on the cutting edge of dealing with this problem. We need to get smart about how to be on the cutting edge of solving it. Here are four things our government and utilities should be doing now.

First of all, improved forest management: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and wildfire management is no different. We can start by taking concrete steps to thin our forests. This requires that we increase the logging of smaller-diameter trees that are kindling for enormous fires. We also need to increase the area in which California allows controlled burns. Governor Jerry Brown took a major step toward this with an executive order doubling the area where forest growth can be thinned with controlled burns. Governor-elect Gavin Newsom should follow his example, further increasing the area where the state allows controlled burns.

Secondly, smart watershed management: Over one-third of California’s land is forested, and these forests house the vast majority of the watersheds that hold snow mass and provide water for the state well into the spring. The same poor forest management that enable major wildfires — such as allowing excessive vegetation density and overpopulation of small trees and brush — also causes the degradation of these watersheds. We should proactively manage the watersheds by reforesting areas that capture snow and doing controlled burns. Smarter management can substantially reduce wildfire exposure. 

Thirdly, utility companies also need to make fire prevention a priority. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection determined that PG&E’s power lines caused 16 of the Wine Country fires that killed 44 people and caused $10 billion in damages last year. Here is what utilities can do to be part of the solution. First, PG&E and other companies need to use new technologies such as geospatial data to ensure tree limbs are not making contact with power lines. Low cost, high-resolution satellite imagery and drone technologies will make this traditionally difficult task much easier. Second, early fire detection and early warning to residents is essential. New technologies using LiDAR are available today that that can detect fires within minutes. Utility companies also need to take a proactive role in more quickly using massive text/cell phone warning to do earlier evacuations. Third, every utility should follow San Diego Gas and Electric’s and PG&E’s lead by conducting strategic blackouts during high-wind events to reduce the risk of power line ignitions.

Common sense and preventative solutions are an important step to reducing wildfires, and California should lead in each of these areas. But California’s most important contribution to stopping wildfires will be to continue to lead the world in stopping what is causing wildfires — global warming. We are doing this by creating an economy built on sustainable energy. In the 1970s, Californians passed catalytic converter legislation requiring automakers to make cleaner cars. Within a decade, every automaker in the world had retooled assembly plants to meet the regulations. Similarly, in 2015, the California legislature passed a law requiring utilities to produce 50% renewable energy from our electric grid by 2030. Critics scoffed, but we will meet that goal 10 years early.

No one wants more fires. We know how to reduce their likelihood and severity, but the real solution lies in building a world-class economy that moves off carbon-based fuels to sustainable energy. That’s a race we should all want California to win.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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As the California governor’s race heats up, voters should focus on one issue that towers above all others in importance: our public pension system’s slide toward insolvency.

Even as the stock market soars to historic highs, our state pension funds remain substantially underfunded. CalPERS and CalSTRS, the state’s largest pension funds with $450 billion under management, can currently cover only two-thirds of what they are committed to pay out to retirees. When the stock market drops — and nearly all economists agree it’s a “when” not an “if” — that number could drop to below 50%.

As the bills start coming due, cities will bear the brunt. In the Pasadena School District, spending on unfunded pension promises grew 144% from 2012 to 2017, while spending on teacher salaries grew only 5%. Over the next seven years, rising pension costs will require cities to nearly double the percentage of their General Funds they pay to CalPERS. This will dramatically reduce the amount that cities have to pay for essential services like teachers, police and firefighters. Without fundamental changes, cities will have to choose between cutting services or raising taxes.

This is not an academic concept. I was the state controller in 2003 when California nearly ran out of money. California’s bonds were downgraded to near “junk” status and I had to go to New York to raise money to keep the state solvent. The governor was recalled for the first time in history. We don’t want to go there again.

There are three things we should do now to avoid a similar fate.

First, cities and the state should set aside 2 to 3% of their budgets to pay down their unfunded liabilities. Second, cities and the state should look for cuts and new revenue sources now, not wait until pension costs begin to crowd out funding for basic services. Third, and most importantly, we must revise the California Rule.

The California Rule, created by the California Supreme Court, says that pensions must be treated as contracts under state law. It guarantees not only the pension benefits that a public employee has already earned, but also any pension benefits that he or she might earn 30 to 40 years from now. So any changes to future benefits must be offset by new advantages to the pensioner — effectively making it impossible to bring unearned future pensions in line with budgetary needs.

Governor Jerry Brown has taken the lead in challenging the California Rule in the California Supreme Court, arguing that its inflexibility — in particular, how it bars modifications to unearned future benefits — does not square with contract principles or the state’s economic reality. The governor is right. The only long-term solution for the state’s pension shortfall is to amend the California Rule.

As Californians compare candidates in the gubernatorial race, the looming pension problem should be front and center. The next governor will have significant influence over future budgets and will appoint members to the CalPERS the CalSTRS boards. And, whatever the outcome of the court battle over the California Rule, there will be more litigation on how much cities and the state can modify unearned future pension benefits.

The next governor will need to have the courage to follow Governor Brown’s lead in pushing for the reforms to keep our cities and our state solvent. California’s entire state budget is roughly $130 billion, but we may owe as much as $200 billion in unfunded liabilities — and that number is increasing. We don’t have to pay it all back in one year, but we need to start taking measures to address the problem now. Ask yourself: Which candidate will take action today, so we won’t have to face a crisis tomorrow?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Niyazz / Shutterstock.com

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This last year California had two of the most devastating fires in its history, with a firestorm that burned 245,000 acres and killed 44 people. The cost to the economy was over $85 million. Just seven weeks later, the wildfires in the southern part of the state burned 307,900 acres and over 250,000 people were forced to evacuate. In 2016, Colorado, another fire prone state, saw 1,190 wildfires, burning nearly 130,000 acres in total.

California, Colorado and much of the western United States are used to droughts, and we understand that they lead to wildfires. But now we need to add landslides to the list of natural disasters we must prepare for. In fact, according the US Geological Survey, disastrous slides can occur in all 50 states, with regions like the Appalachian Mountains, the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coastal Ranges particularly vulnerable to landslides. Is it time to pay more attention to climate change?

The warmest five years on record have occurred since 2006, with 2017 being one of the warmest yet. This triggers four phenomena: drought, wildfires, more intense rainstorms and, finally, landslides. We know that warming temperatures can lead to drought, but drought in itself is part of a cyclical effect: Under warmer conditions, more precipitation falls as rain than snow. This means that less water is stored as snow in the winter months, leading to a shortage of accessible water in the long term (or drought), and more flooding in the short term.

Drought causes a massive die-off of trees, as seen throughout the western US. Experts estimate that there are over 100 million dead trees as a direct result of the drought. With parched landscapes, especially in forest areas, wildfires are also more frequent and far more intense. Fires in the west have been hotter and more massive in scale than ever before, and vast tracts of land have been denuded by fire.

Warmer oceans lead to more evaporation, sending more water into the atmosphere. The warmer atmosphere, in turn, has the capacity to hold onto more of this moisture, which then comes back down in the form of heavier rainfall. These rainstorms are therefore more intense, causing groundwater levels to rise and increasing the likelihood of landslides.

When you combine more intense rainstorms and barren landscapes caused by fire, you get landslides. This is no longer conjecture. A 2014 slide in Oso, Washington state, killed 43 people, the deadliest in US history, and the December 2017 landslide in Montecito, California, killed 41. Up to 15 feet in height and moving as quickly at 20 mph, these landslides create a specter of what we need to plan for in any of our mountainous regions.

Being awakened in the middle of the night to emergency sirens warning of an impending landslide used to be something that only a few homeowners perched on the side of steep slopes worried about. But as the devastating slides of late 2017 have shown us, that threat is now present in many more places, thanks in no small part to climate change. You don’t have to be a climate scientist, or a rocket scientist, to see that our climate is changing. So, what should we do?

Three things. First, we need to send a message to D.C. that tackling climate change must be a priority. Second, we need to send a message to the rest of the world that states like Washington, Oregon and California will continue to be global leaders in reducing our carbon footprint even after the White House declared that the US is withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord.

And, finally, we need to continue to encourage a culture that fosters innovative companies like Tesla, Sunpower and AirBnB, whose mission is to contribute to a decreased global carbon footprint. We may not be able to control the powers of nature, but every state can do its part to tackle these challenges head on.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Media Bakery13 / Shutterstock.com

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Americans love cars and shopping malls, but changes on the horizon suggest that this love affair will not last. Technology is triggering massive transformations in our economy, and changes in retail and transportation are creating both significant challenges and opportunities. We need to change how we use space in our cities, both to build more housing and to open up public green spaces in our urban centers for generations to come.

The retail industry is changing dramatically. Analysts project that one out of four malls will close down within the next five years. Major national chains like Macy’s have laid off thousands of workers over the past year. As more shopping shifts to the internet, more changes are in store. Today, over half our households use Amazon Prime, and that number is only going up.

These changes call for new thinking. We have built cities around large shopping malls, and our local governments depend on sales tax revenues from these outlets. Now government needs to reimagine how we use the massive amount of retail space that will be coming free. Given the shortage of good quality housing nationally, local governments should rezone land currently used for retail to make it available for housing.

We should also be broadening our tax structure to recognize we are becoming a service economy and think about how we tax online sales. While Amazon now pays sales taxes for shipments in every state that collects such taxes, it does not require third-party sellers to do so. Other online marketplaces do not collect any sales tax. Federal and state governments should close these loopholes to ensure local governments retain the revenue they need for public services.

The transportation industry is changing. We’re moving toward a world in which most Americans don’t own their cars, but instead share autonomous vehicles. Since the average car is only used 3% of a given day, we could be using autonomous cars instead of driving to work and parking. This will take cars off the road and dramatically reduce the amount of parking we need. Houses and apartment complexes that dedicate significant space to parking will no longer need that space.

A massive amount of parking in our downtown areas is about to come open. We should plan for how to turn that space into infill housing and green spaces. For example, in California, Los Angeles County has more than 200 square miles of parking spaces, equivalent to 14% of the county’s incorporated land area. This land could be repurposed for public parks or housing. As millennials move to urban centers, we have an opportunity to recapture parking lots and turn our cities green.

When I started working at a small online start-up called eBay in 1997, people asked, Will people ever really buy things on the internet? When I said yes, it sounded as crazy then, as their question sounds to us today. Our economy is changing faster than most of us understand. Today, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to recapture some of the very space we need to build housing and to make our cities more liveable. There is no doubt that technology poses some great challenges, but it also creates some great opportunities. It is time to turn some of those challenges into opportunities.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: iurii / Shutterstock.com

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California has been a global leader in renewable energy for two decades. In 2003, we mandated that 20% of our electricity would come from renewable energy by 2010. Critics scoffed, but we did that, and more. In 2011, California again passed legislation to raise the requirement to 33% by 2020. In 2015, we passed SB 350 raising the bar to 50% renewable energy by 2030. Each time we acted, critics said the goals were too ambitious and could not be met.  Yet, each time, Californians met and exceeded them. California’s economy has not faltered; it has grown, and we are about to pass France to become the world’s 5th largest economy, with 40% fewer people. It’s time to think even more boldly.

Recently, Governor Jerry Brown has expressed interest in barring the sale of internal combustion vehicles, and last week Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation banning such vehicles by 2040. California would be the first US state to take such a step, but the world is moving quickly toward electric vehicles. India, France, Norway and the UK have all passed legislation prohibiting the sale of cars with internal combustion engines in the future. It is time for California to do the same.

Why move to all-electric vehicles? According to the American Lung Association, the six most polluted cities in the United States are in California:  Fresno, Bakersfield, Visalia, Modesto, Los Angeles and San Jose. More than four in 10 Americans live in counties where the air is unhealthy to breathe due to ozone or particle pollution. A recent MIT study showed that air pollution causes 200,000 premature deaths a year in the United States, with a disproportionately high number of those in Southern California due to its legendary traffic.

Could California really go all electric? In short, yes. Today, every major car company in the world is making electric vehicles — and they are moving quickly. This year, both General Motors and Tesla began selling the first moderately priced, extended-range electric vehicles. Elon Musk expects that Tesla will ship over 500,000 electric vehicles over the next two years. Volkswagen, Nissan, BMW, Toyota, Ford, Daimler and Chinese automakers BYD and SAIC are also moving fast. As the home to 500,000 clean tech jobs and Tesla Motors, California is well-positioned to take the lead in speeding up the adoption of electric vehicles.

A ban on the sale of new internal combustion engines would be phased in over time, and internal combustion cars already on the road would not be banned. The cost of electric vehicles is coming down quickly and they will soon be cheaper than gas-powered cars. As production of electric vehicles is ramping up, the cost of lithium ion batteries is coming down. The cost of those batteries has dropped from $1,200 a kilowatt hour a decade ago to less than $200 today. Electric vehicles also cost roughly 75% less to operate and service than internal combustion vehicles. On top of all of this, the United States has now built out over 40,000 charging stations, making long trips convenient and more economical than ever.

Other countries have decided to get ahead of the curve. Norway has introduced a transportation plan with a target of selling only zero-emission passenger cars and vans by 2025. India has set an “aspirational target” of ending the sale of gas and diesel vehicles by 2026. The United Kingdom and France have both announced plans to ban the sales of gas and diesel vehicles by 2040.

Why aren’t these countries afraid that punitive laws like this will burden their citizens? While they understand there may be costs to the transition, policymakers around the world increasingly realize we are in the middle of a renewable energy revolution that is creating higher-paying jobs for the future.

California has led the clean technology revolution for decades. We have created new industries and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the process. Now that we are producing more clean energy than ever, and it is time to lead the way again. California needs to set a date for barring the sale of gas and diesel vehicles. If Norway, India, the UK and France can do this, so can we. California, what are we waiting for?

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: goldenjack / Shutterstock.com

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Income inequality in America is at its highest point since the 1920s. For all our divisions, Americans understand that too much of the wealth our economy is producing is going to those at the very top, while millions see stagnant or declining wages. We will not solve income inequality until we provide better equality of opportunity to all Americans. That effort begins with a commitment to public education that prepares every American to succeed in the 21st century.

In the 20th century, our public schools were the envy of the world and the foundation of our economic growth. Today, we’ve fallen behind. Only four countries spend more per student than the United States, yet American high school students rank 38th in the world in math and 24th in science. The next generation of Americans will not lead the global economy unless we restore our global leadership in public education.

To get there, we need to recruit the next generation of great teachers, update school curricula and empower teachers and students with tools fitting the 21st century.

The evidence is clear: The strongest driver of a student’s success is the quality of their teachers. A landmark study in Tennessee found that when comparable 8-year-old students were given different teachers — one a high-performing teacher and one a low-performer — the student with the better teacher outperformed the other by 50% within three years. In 2011, research by Stanford economist Raj Chetty found that replacing a teacher in the bottom 5% of the teaching force with an average teacher increases a student’s lifetime income by over $250,000.

Recruiting the next generation of great teachers is our highest priority. This is not a new idea; it’s what the world’s most successful school systems are already doing. South Korea only recruits teachers in the top 5% of their graduating classes. Finland recruits teachers in the top 10%, and Singapore and Hong Kong recruit teachers from the top third. By contrast, fewer than one in four teachers in the United States comes from the top third of their graduating class. In high-poverty districts, it’s closer to one in 10.

To recruit the next generation of great teachers, we need to treat the teaching profession with the respect it deserves. Top-performing countries recognize that effective teaching demands rigorous training. In Finland, all teachers must have master’s degrees. In Singapore, teachers must complete intensive education courses and 100 hours of professional development each year. Rigorous certification requirements make the teaching profession more attractive, not less. The result is a feedback loop: As we increase the prestige of teaching, we will recruit more and more talented graduates to join, further lifting the status of teachers in our society.

We can also amplify teachers’ effectiveness. New technologies also make possible “blended learning” or “flipped classroom” approaches to teaching. Schools have already begun replacing classroom lectures with online tools that allow students to learn at their own pace. These tools allow teachers to serve as personalized coaches, identifying and responding individually to students’ needs. Over 15 million students visit the free website Quizlet every month to take tests ranging from multiplying fractions to conjugating Spanish verbs. Schools can integrate these tools to let students learn at their own speeds and give teachers instant feedback about each student’s progress. These tools also offer alternatives to high-stakes, end-of-year tests that stifle creativity.

Finally, it’s time to bring school curricula into the 21st century. The world is changing at warp speed, yet our students still study the same subjects taught to their parents a generation ago. Starting in elementary school, students should be exposed not just to STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — but to computer science and coding. Students know these principals intuitively; half the children in the world already use smartphones. Elementary school students can use educational programs like Sphero, Wonder Workshop and Lego Mindstorms to learn basic programming and design. Middle and high school students can learn basic programming languages like Python and statistics for data science and analytics.

America cannot compete in the 21st-century global economy without a 21st-century education system. To build it, we need to recruit the best teachers and make sure they have the tools to teach students the skills they need to succeed. America became the envy of the world by investing in a public education system that built a strong middle class. It’s time to rethink public education so that we provide every child an equal shot at achieving the American dream.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Photo Credit: Sam Edwards

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